SLUG:SSAN SUPT PROFILE-AssignID 446259-September 22, 2012-San Antonio, Texas---South San Antonio Independent School District Superintendent Rebecca Robinson with a Bobcat footprint painted on her face during a recent tailgate party.

Photo By Edward A. Ornelas/San Antonio Express-News

A reader laments the departure last week of South San Antonio Independent School District superintendent Rebecca Robinson, shown here in happier times during a board meeting at the district headquarters. Robinson resigned because of the dysfunction within the school board, and the reader says her dynamic leadership will be missed.

Photo By Edward A. Ornelas/San Antonio Express-News

South San Antonio Independent School District's new superintendent Rebecca Robinson listens to speakers during a board meeting held Friday June 22, 2012 at district headquarters.

Photo By Edward A. Ornelas/San Antonio Express-News

South San Antonio Independent School District's new superintendent Rebecca Robinson (left) dances with South San High School retired band director Alex Sanchez during a board meeting held Friday June 22, 2012 at the district headquarters. The South San community warmly welcomed its new superintendent, Rebecca Robinson, Friday night at its district headquarters with a surprise serenade from their schools' mariachi students and instructors, and words of encouragement from elected officials and students. Robinson told the crowd after dancing in the middle of the board room with the district’s retired band director, Alex Sanchez, that she “felt right at home.” Robinson, who is Latina, hails from Eagle Pass where she has spent her entire 31-year career in education at the local school district, and worked her way up into top administration. She will be San Antonio’s only female superintendent.

Photo By Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News

Rebecca Robinson, second from left, signs her contract after she accepts the position of superintendent with the South San Antonio Independent School District, Wednesday, June 20, 2012. With Robinson are from left, board secretary Rose Marie Martinez, board president Helen Madla and district's attorney Jennifer Hall.

Photo By Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News

South San Antonio Independent School District Board Member Connie Prado, left, congratulates Rebecca Robinson during their regular meeting, Wednesday, June 20, 2012. Robinson was hired as the district's new superintendent during the meeting.

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Hobbies: A self-described workaholic, she likes home improvement, reading and gardening.

When Rebecca Robinson started telling people she was going to take the job as South San Antonio Independent School District's new superintendent, she got a common response: “Are you crazy?”

Robinson, who assumed the post in July, says she isn't. But she understands the reaction.

The district has been mired in controversy for years, and she arrived after a particularly tumultuous chapter.

The school board voted 4-3 last year to fire longtime Superintendent Ron Durbon, who lost his appeal to the state after a hearing that unearthed deeper dysfunction in South San than had been apparent.

Then a Bexar County grand jury indicted an athletic department employee for theft. Others in the department resigned, including its director, Gary Durbon, Ron Durbon's son.

Test scores have dropped, the budget had to be cut by $5 million, and trustees, administrators and employees were feuding and pointing fingers.

Robinson's outsider status might help untangle the job from the district's insular politics, the board reasoned. She is now the only female school superintendent in San Antonio's non-military school districts and one of the few Latina superintendents in the state.

“I know I have my work cut out for me, believe me,” Robinson said in a recent interview. “But I am up to the challenge.”

Her road to South San ran through Eagle Pass, the border city where she was born the youngest of seven children, raised by a taxi driver father and seamstress mother.

“I sometimes don't know how they put food on the table without us ever missing a meal,” Robinson said. “We were expected to work, whether when we get home by cleaning and prepping dinner, or in summer when we would pick watermelons and cantaloupes to have some extra money.”

Robinson said she realized she wanted a better life. Inspired by her English teacher, she studied elementary education at what is now Texas State University. Her parents didn't want her to go as far as San Marcos, but obliged and sent her off with $500 in her pocket.

Not knowing how to apply for financial aid, she worked odd jobs and finished in three years to save money.

“Back then, nobody told you about how to do all that,” Robinson said, stressing why student college readiness is a priority for her.

Robinson has spent her entire 32-year career in her hometown school district as a teacher, coach, principal and most recently as director of curriculum and instruction. She doesn't consider herself a trailblazer, but former colleagues recall a maverick spirit.

“When Becky and I were coming up, we were among the few women in leadership positions in Eagle Pass, where it was a more macho, male-dominated culture,” which still holds true “for those who make it to the top in education,” said Peggy Cerna, a former Eagle Pass principal and now a retired Austin ISD administrator.

Robinson decided to leave after being passed over for superintendent at Eagle Pass. A trustee told her she was more valuable in her current role. That night, she said, she went home, looked up jobs and came across South San's opening.

In both districts, enrollment is 97 percent Hispanic and overwhelmingly economically disadvantaged — but Eagle Pass students score better on state tests, and their graduation rates are higher.

Short honeymoon

As soon as South San trustees announced her as the top pick in May, Robinson became a target. Rumors flew that she was a family friend of board president Helen Madla, which both deny, saying they first met during the interview process.

Trustee Karyn Tomlinson echoed the rumor when she cast the lone vote against Robinson as the finalist for the job, later switching to make her hiring unanimous a month later.

The night Robinson showed up unannounced to sign her $145,000-per-year contract — during a board meeting in which trustees publicly embarrassed Tomlinson and the interim superintendent but refrained from acting on agenda items to discipline them — Madla quipped that South San was the “Lindsay Lohan of local school districts.”

“I just remember sitting in that audience and thinking, ‘Wow, so this is what it's like,'” Robinson said.

The board welcomed her by playing Simon & Garfunkel's “Mrs. Robinson” and hosted a mariachi reception for her a few weeks later, clapping and dancing with her.

“We weren't just at the bottom of the barrel, we were under the barrel,” Madla said later, adding that she was proud to have a Latina superintendent to reflect San Antonio's population.

But within days, Robinson started navigating board disagreements, public criticism, and regular news media inquiries about ongoing district scandals.

At her first board meeting in July, trustees Connie Prado and Homer Flores disagreed over hearing a report about the district's standardized test results. Flores said Prado didn't follow policy in requesting the report and was micromanaging Robinson. Prado argued that the public needed to hear the results.

Robinson appeared thrown off by the tug of war. “I will do whatever the board wishes,” she said as district lawyer Jennifer Hall negotiated a compromise to hear the report at the next month's meeting.

In August, Robinson took a hard line against the district police department after investigating officers accusing one another of sexual harassment, theft of district fuel and falsifying police reports. She said no wrongdoing was provable, but that she'd fire the entire department and hire an outside company if the infighting continued.

Last month, she faced a public outcry when she suggested that Communities in Schools, a program to help disadvantaged students and their families, might not be effective, implemented as it was in only a handful of schools. A dozen speakers defended the program, echoed by trustees, and Robinson pulled an agenda item to rethink her proposal to cancel the CIS contract.

Trustees are divided into opposing political camps, but so far they seem united behind Robinson — though that could change with the Nov. 6 elections, in which four incumbents face challengers.

“There are always going to be haters,” Madla said. “But I think she has done a great job in starting to get us back on track and has an open door policy with the public.”

“When there is a lot of turmoil outside of the classroom, it can find a way inside there,” he said. “Teachers hope for more stability, clear direction, better pay, and worry about the impact of the elections on the direction of South San.”

Robinson said she'll work with whoever is elected. Her goal is to raise graduation and completion rates and test scores, restructure the budget, and complete a needs assessment to help prioritize resources. She said she would love to turn South San around and retire from there.

“My focus is making South San the best district it can be, and that is what all my energy is going toward,” Robinson said. “I want to prove those wrong who don't think it's possible.”

fvara-orta@express-news.net

Twitter: @fvaraorta

Correction: Gail Siller of Fort Sam Houston Independent School District was the only female school superintendent in San Antonio until South San ISD hired Rebecca Robinson last July. A story on Tuesday's page A1 of the Express-News and on mySA.com incorrectly gave that distinction to Robinson.